What Lies Beneath
by paperstorm
Summary: Part of my Deleted Scenes series. The tag for 'Yellow Fever', 4x6. Wincest.


**Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)**

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"So c'mon, tell me what you saw." Sam flops down onto the bed, resting his head on a couple of pillows and looking over at Dean.

"What?"

"When you were hallucinating. I know it wasn't howler monkeys. No one is afraid of howler monkeys."

Dean shrugs and sits on the other bed. "Just your typical shit, like I said. Hellhounds. Demons. Nothin' to write home about."

"What about when I walked in and you were freaking out against the wall?"

"Why do you wanna know?"

"I don't know. I just do."

Dean chews on his lower lip for a moment, not sure if he really wants to tell Sam. "You were, uh, choking me. Or a demon was, I guess, your eyes were black."

"Did I say anything?"

"It wasn't you."

"Yeah, I know that."

"Not really," Dean lies casually. "You just walked in and jumped me."

Sam hums noncommittally, and Dean can't tell if he believes it. "And right at the end?"

There are about six or seven thousand things Dean would rather be talking about, but he knows Sam and he knows Sam won't let up. So he exhales and admits, "Lilith."

Sam frowns. "Like, _the_ Lilith?"

"Yeah. Remember that little girl she was riding? In that house, the night I …" He doesn't need to finish the sentence. They both know what happened in that house.

"What did she say?"

"What you'd expect. That I was gonna die, gonna go back to Hell."

Sam nods and squints a little like he's trying to see through Dean. "Did it freak you out?"

"At the time," Dean says, with another devil-may-care shrug that Sam probably doesn't buy.

"And now?"

"Boy, you are just full'a questions tonight, aren't ya?" Dean asks with an eye-roll.

"Dean."

"Yeah, it freaked me out!" Dean cries. "I thought I was gonna die, Sam, I'm allowed to … whatever."

"Fine, sorry I asked," Sam grumbles, and then his voice softens again when he says, "You know it doesn't make you … I don't know, weak. Or a pussy, or whatever you're calling yourself in your head."

Dean doesn't answer. He hates it when Sam just _knows_ things like that. It makes him feel transparent. And, like always, unworthy of the excuses Sam's giving him.

He shifts around, leaning against the padded headboard and putting his feet up on the mattress, crossing them at the ankles and looking down at his hands. This hunt _sucked_ and Dean doesn't want to think about it but he can't stop. He knows they were just hallucinations, but they were manifestations of fears he already had. The sickness didn't _create_ the fear, it just made it real. Dean knows he's going back to Hell the next time he dies, and he knows exactly what it's like down there and he can't do it again. And he's terrified – absolutely, completely, out-of-his-mind terrified – about what's going on with his brother. Sam said he wasn't going to see Ruby anymore and Dean believes he's kept that promise, but Sam's powers, and the demon blood, and everything else, it just scares Dean down to his core. He hates the idea that one day something might happen to Sam that Dean won't be able to protect him from.

"Tell me about the new Indy movie," Dean says eventually, just to break the silence.

Sam chuckles a little and rolls onto his back. "It … it was alright. Nothing like the first ones."

"Worth seeing?"

"I don't know. Not really. I just …" He sighs and frowns up at the ceiling. "I actually only saw it 'cause you'd wanted to. Before … you know. We were supposed to see it together and then you were gone, and I felt like I should …"

He trails off, but Dean knows what he was going to say. He still hates thinking about Sam up here all alone. If Sam was even a quarter as messed up as Dean would've been had their situations been reversed, it must've been a really crappy four months.

"Did you hold my leather jacket and cry all the way through it?" he jokes, to cut the tension.

Then he feels like an ass when Sam shrugs and says, "Kinda."

"Shit. M'sorry, I didn't …"

Sam shakes his head. "It's fine. It wasn't a great night, but you're back, so. Doesn't matter."

It _does_ matter, but Dean keeps that to himself.

"And then, uh …" Sam pauses and laughs a little. "There was this episode of South Park after, where the kids were all talking about this friend of theirs who got raped and then you find out it was Indy."

Dean's eyes widen and he looks over at Sam. "What?"

Sam snickers again. "It was gross, dude, they had all these super graphic scenes where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were all pinning him down and stuff, Deliverance-style. And then at the end, they get arrested while they're raping a Storm Trooper."

Dean laughs loudly and shakes his head. "I don't even know what to do with that."

"Neither did I. It made me laugh, though. Actually, I remember thinking you would've found it funny, and wishing I could tell you about it. So it's cool that now I can."

Dean nods and falls silent again. After a while, Sam kicks off his shoes, and then he gets up and walks over to Dean. Dean looks up at him in question, but Sam doesn't speak. Instead he climbs on top of Dean, settling down in his lap with his legs tucked under him, and cups Dean's face in his hands and kisses him. On instinct, Dean puts his hands on Sam's waist and kisses him back; soft brushes of lips that start out slow but quickly escalate. Sam's tongue pushes into his mouth, swirls around his own, and Dean sucks at it for just a moment before he reluctantly pulls away. He knows what Sam wants, and he can't do it.

"Sam," is all he says in place of an explanation, and Sam sighs.

He rests his forehead against Dean's for a moment, and then he mumbles, "Yeah. Okay," and climbs back off Dean. He lies down on the bed beside him, folding his hands on his chest and staring off into space in the opposite direction. Dean wipes his hand over his mouth and closes his eyes for a moment, the familiar self-loathing washing over him in burning-hot waves.

"Can I ask you something?" Sam says finally, in a quiet voice.

Dean wants to say no. Whatever it is, he probably won't like it. But Sam will probably just ask anyway regardless of how Dean answers, so he says, "Yeah."

"I mean, it's just been ... weird. One day you're jumping me in the shower and the next you don't even wanna kiss me. And you haven't … I mean we haven't …"

"Yeah. I know." Dean pulls his knees up, resting his elbows on them and dropping his head so he doesn't have to look at his brother. Not that Sam's looking at him anyway.

"Is it … is it the blood?" Sam asks in a voice that's dripping with sadness.

Dean blinks. "What?"

"Is it because of what I am? What's in me?"

"You …" Dean pauses a moment to wrap his head around what he thinks Sam's asking, because his heart might actually break if Sam's saying what it sounds like he is. "You think I don't wanna be with you because Yellow-Eyes put demon blood in you twenty years ago?"

Sam shrugs listlessly. "To be honest I don't know what to think. We haven't been together since the time when you first got back, and then it was – y'know, you, instead of me like it usually is. And it's not like I'm hard up or something, I just ... I miss you. I miss us."

Dean misses it too. He misses it more than he'll ever tell Sam. Misses the closeness, the way it made him feel connected to his brother; the way it felt like in those moments, nothing could touch them. It tears at his insides that Sam thinks Dean doesn't want him anymore because he's dirty, or damaged. He swallows thickly over a painful lump in his throat and moves around until he's lying beside Sam, on his side facing him.

"Sammy. Look at me," he requests softly.

Sam does, and Dean's chest clenches where he sees how shiny Sam's eyes are.

"It has nothing to do with it. I promise. The whole thing – it freaks me out, alright? It really scares me, I told you that already. But it doesn't make me see you any different. You're not tainted."

"Then why won't you …"

Dean knows what he means. They used to sleep together almost every night, wrapped around each other, sweaty and exhausted. Dean used to fuck Sam at least a few times a week, and now it's been a month and a half and he hasn't. And the truth is, he can't. He slept with Jamie to test it. After what he did in Hell, he's terrified if he gets that power, that control – if he's put in a position where he has the ability to hurt someone, he's scared he'll take it. He can't hurt Sam. He can't even imagine it. So he used a girl he'd just met to see if he was right. He wasn't, not with her anyway. Their night together was fine. Maybe not quite as electric as it used to be with Sam, but still enjoyable. He didn't do anything to her that she wasn't more than happy about. But Dean still can't with Sam. He doesn't know if what happened with Jamie was just a fluke. He can't risk it. He tore people apart in Hell and he loved it. He looked _forward_ to it, to getting to deal out some of what had been done to him for thirty years. If they were together and he lost control in the middle and hurt Sam, he'd never forgive himself. Ever.

Dean looks down a little, to get away from Sam's piercing gaze. Sam's eyes see too much – they _know_ too much. "I just … can't. I'm sorry."

He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. Dean hates this. He's been working so hard to pretend everything's okay, because if he tries hard enough he's almost sure he can convince himself that it's true. He wants to just hunt and eat unhealthy food and drive around in his baby with his brother like he used to. He misses that Dean, the one who had a world of problems but could keep them mostly buried. Now he can't. Out in the world, on a job, he can act like that person, but get him in a locked room with Sam and all the fight goes right out of him. Dean hates himself for it, but he can't seem to help letting loose the broken shell of the person he's become. And Sam gets to see all of it, as much as Dean tries to hide it from him, and he's still here despite everything. He's still in the bed next to Dean – he lets his hand drop down between their bodies, the back of it touching the back of Dean's for a moment before he lifts it up to thread their fingers together – and that's almost worse, because Dean doesn't deserve any of it.

He squeezes Sam's hand briefly and then he pulls his away and lets it rest on his stomach. Dean doesn't want the contact.

"Do you remember it?" Sam asks softly.

"Remember what?"

"Hell."

Dean frowns. "I told you I didn't."

"Yeah, I know you did, but just … I don't know. M'just trying to get a handle on what's going on in your head lately."

Dean hears the echoes of blood-curdling screams in his head almost constantly, feels the sting of the knives on his skin, but it's still all too easy to say, "No, I don't. I wouldn't lie to you about that."

Sam seems to believe him, and that in itself is a perfect portrait of exactly how messed up everything is right now.

"I got chased by a Yorkie," Dean tells him, trying desperately to put some light back into the room after their angsting sucked it all out.

Sam looks at him again with a frown on his forehead and a small smile on his lips. "You what?"

"After I flipped out and ditched you. When I said I ran back to the motel? I was running from the most ridiculously tiny little dog with a bow on its head. I thought it was gonna attack me."

Sam gapes at him and then he laughs, bright and carefree, and it makes Dean _so_ happy to hear it. "You wouldn't make a left turn."

"This was a weird one," Dean chuckles, covering his face with his hands.

"They're all weird. You were right about one thing, we definitely are crazy people."

"In an awesome way, though."

"Yeah." Sam laughs again, and then he sits up and looks at Dean over his shoulder. "Wanna see if there's a movie on or something?"

"Sounds good." Dean gets up too and follows his brother to the loveseat in front of the TV.

Sam sits down and picks up the remote to start flipping channels, and even though he doesn't really want to, Dean throws him a bone and sits too close, leaning against Sam's side. Sam smiles predictably, and pulls Dean into his arms. Dean relaxes against him, resting his head on Sam's shoulder, and even though he still hates himself for it, maybe having Sam against him like this does make everything just a little bit more bearable. It doesn't fix anything, but Dean spent the last two days so terrified it nearly killed him, and with Sam's arms around him, he finally feels safe.

Sam kisses the top of his head and whispers, "Love you," and Dean blinks against the sudden sting of tears he will under no circumstances let fall, and answers, "Me too."


End file.
